


An Ironclad Mind

by hollyfrosty



Series: 15 Days of FatT 2019 [1]
Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 14:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18033215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyfrosty/pseuds/hollyfrosty
Summary: Fourteen Fifteen has died, again, and survived.(Part of 15 Days of FatT 2019, in response to the theme FORGET.)





	An Ironclad Mind

**Author's Note:**

> My technobabble is probably not accurate to any modern computing system but... it could be accurate for the Twilight Mirage?

As usual, when Fourteen wakes up, they know exactly who they are. They are Carcanet’s Ironclad. The armor against the wall, polished and jewel-encrusted, is theirs. They have died, again, and survived. They stand up from their bed, and slowly don their armor, ready for whatever their new body needs to do. They stride confidently out of their room... and feel as though they’ve been hit by a truck.

_ FATAL EXCEPTION ON LINE 16190895. File not found. Searching. _

Fourteen realizes immediately what is happening. It is not their first time in a synthetic body, and they know that synthetic bodies are not used to forgetting. Organic life forgets, it is part of life. But if a machine forgets, there is something very wrong happening. Fourteen weakly finds their way back to their bed and lies back down.

_ Beginning defragmentation of main hard drive. _

Fourteen is not sure whether to be relieved or not that they do not have to face the bodily reactions to a panic attack. Instead, they simply have to lie in bed and wait for their body to decide that it is operating sufficiently.

_ Defragmentation: 10%. _

Fourteen sees moments half-remembered flash before them before they fade into oblivion and are forgotten.

_ Defragmentation: 15%. _

Fourteen sees faces that they cannot attach names to, but they swear were once important. They’re gone now.

_ Defragmentation: 22%. _

Fourteen has the briefest inkling that some of these faces used to belong to them. What they were used for, what they were like, all of that is lost.

_ Defragmentation: 34%. _

Scenes of intense violence repressed, with Fourteen uncomfortably realizing that the perpetrator of the violence was them, flash and fade, leaving only emotions disconnected from memories.

_ Defragmentation: 45%. _

Friends? Family? Fourteen couldn’t remember them, some ghost of a dream from long, long ago.

_ Defragmentation: 63%. _

Details from various contracts and dossiers, disconnected from context. Trivia from Fourteen’s life that could not be connected to the outside world.

_ Defragmentation: 79%. _

Dreams, or stories Fourteen was once told, blending together before they fade in the name of operational efficiency.

_ Defragmentation: 92%. _

Skills that had become rusty from disuse lifetimes ago, so forgotten that they were beyond retraining, and now gone completely.

_ Defragmentation: 100%. _

Fourteen stands up, the memories they retain now so much sharper without the cloud of half-memories surrounding them. Fourteen walks with confidence: they  _ knew _ they were Caranet’s Ironclad, now they  _ are _ Carcanet’s Ironclad.


End file.
